


Lovingly Mended

by foreverhalffull



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, HBDCBS2020, and with a happy ending, but a happysad yknow, kinda sad for a birthday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27690485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreverhalffull/pseuds/foreverhalffull
Summary: Cormoran turns six and forty-six, and thinks about love.
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 23
Kudos: 37
Collections: Happy Birthday Cormoran Blue Strike | 2020





	Lovingly Mended

He could still remember the first time she’d told him how he felt, as clearly as he could remember the first time he’d resented it, thirteen years later.

His sixth birthday was the first he had spent without his mother. He had felt so sure, the evening of the twenty-second and upon waking in the morning of the twenty-third, that she would appear. It had felt quite like waiting for Santa; the decorations, even, were already in place, and her appearance had been just as bloody likely to happen, his bitter hindsight reminded him. 

When he woke up, early and giddy as he often had done as a child in St. Mawes, he had dressed himself as quickly as he could in his favourite jeans, the knees of which had been patched and mended by Joan three times in as many months, and what he had called his “Ted shirt,” because it reminded him of one his uncle owned. It always excited him when his uncle turned up matching him later in the day, as he’d thought it meant he had read the older man’s mind, but he now knew his uncle went out of his way to “twin him,” as he’d called it.

He now knew, also, that the reason Ted and Joan had decorated so early for Christmas each year was not their love of the season, but because they never knew when the children would come and go, and they wanted Cormoran and Lucy to have memories of a warm house and a glittering tree and stockings hung from the mantel despite their nomadism. So many aspects of his youth, this among them, glinted differently in the harsh fluorescence of adulthood.

Wearing his jeans and his Ted Shirt and quite proud of the fact that he’d dressed himself, he’d climbed steadily into the middle of Ted and Joan’s bed and plopped down atop the covers, laying quietly there until, as always, Joan had performed a sneak attack of tickles and cuddles, folding him neatly under her wing. Ted had sung the birthday tune for him, quietly so as not to wake Lucy, in his voice which had been trained only to carry a sailor’s tune or a pub song, and thus gave such timbre to any ballad. 

Having been sufficiently cuddled and serenaded, Cormoran got down to business. He had always been an efficient and curious child.

“When is my mum going to be here?” he’d asked. “And can I help make my cake this time, now that I can reach the counter?”

“Of course you can help, love. My little helper, aren’t you, Cormoran Blue?” He’d glowed with pride and in the warmth of it, nearly forgotten his first question. 

When his uncle started to rub his back to soften the imminent blow of bad news, he had remembered it suddenly, with a sensation of prickling skin akin to the feeling of wearing a thick woolen sweater that had not yet been broken in and rendered soft. The sensation had, over the years, become associated with the swallowing of tears but rarely the release of them, and most closely in fact, with his mother.

“I don’t know that she’ll make it, darling. But you’re having a good birthday. You know that you have everything you need here, and you’re glad to be here with Dave and Ilsa and birthday fishing and fresh lemon cake. You’re okay, Cormoran; you feel okay.”

His bottom lip had quivered, but he did not give into it or the itchy-sweater feeling, because he was okay. He felt okay, and Aunt Joan had told him this so it must be true; he had not questioned her since the day she had enrolled him in the school he feared his mother would not like, and what a good decision that had been, in the end. After all, he had Dave and Ilsa now, and here in Cornwall he had Uncle Ted’s fishing boat and fresh lemon cake and his soft pyjamas with the snowmen on them. He was very happy to be here, though his happiness felt like sadness sometimes, or like losing something but forgetting precisely what or where to look.

With his day feeling markedly less like Christmas than it had done minutes before, he climbed out of bed and followed his aunt and uncle downstairs, where he waited patiently at the table until they had finished their tea before asking once more to make his cake. He had new questions, now.

“Why does Uncle Ted always make your tea, Auntie Joan? Is it a special recipe, like my cake?”

Joan laughed and ruffled his freshly trimmed curls. “No, he does it because he loves me. When you love someone, you want to make them happy, so you try to find all of the things you can do for them to make their life easier. Even just little things, like how he makes my tea just how I like it. One day you’ll feel like that about somebody, darling, and you’ll understand.”

He had nodded obediently in hopes of progressing more quickly to the cake-making portion of the morning, but the moment had come back to his mind again and again over the years. The love between his aunt and uncle had felt like a deceptively tricky maths problem, which seemed to make perfect sense as an observer but was exponentially trickier to solve on your own. He had, after years of trying, given up on the idea of doing things for Charlotte, as he always failed in some trivial way which provoked her explosive, unpredictable rage.

As he now padded into their new kitchen, not yet dressed for the day, to find Robin surrounded by familiar ingredients and a handwritten recipe, he felt the tangible truth of Joan Nancarrow’s definition of love. But then, he had known it for years now.

“Cake for breakfast?” she offered, leaning across the island countertop to peck him squarely on the mouth.

He smiled against her lips.

“Happy birthday, Strike,” she whispered, as he leaned more heavily on the island in order to deepen their kiss, moving closer within his wife’s space.

“Always a happy day with you, my love.”

“Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> ~~and then they made good use of the time left on the cake timer before it was done baking and they all lived happily ever woohoo~~  
> ps three cheers if u get the title idk if it makes sense but I think I'm allergic to titles other than those in the form of adjective or adverb + noun :)


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